3 ms·

I have for some time had a crackpot theory that language will actually evolve the other way. We have these things we carry around with us, called "phones"; the

by gjm11 11y ago

I have for some time had a crackpot theory that language will actually evolve the other way. We have these things we carry around with us, called "phones"; they are actually general-purpose computing devices and making (what we still call) phone calls is a small part of their purpose. And to an increasing extent these can fulfill almost all our computing needs. So, fast-forward a couple of decades, assuming no huge technological shifts[1]. Everyone is used to having one of these things that they carry around in their pocket, and scarcely anyone really needs any other general-purpose computing device. We still call them "phones" because we always did -- so now this is the usual term for a general-purpose computing device. And, yeah, there are some people who, because of their unusual needs, have a bigger more powerful one. Well, what are you going to call something like a phone but sized to sit on your desk while you work? Obviously it's a desktop phone, right? And somewhere out there In The Cloud there are whole farms of server phones :-). And there will be conversations like the ones we[2] now have about how "computer" used to mean a human being who did calculations. "Hey, did you ever look up where the word 'phone' actually comes from? It turns out that back in the 20th century they mostly used them for talking to one another, and it comes from some Greek thing meaning 'sound at a distance'. Weird, huh?" [1] That's a pretty big assumption, of course. [2] For sufficiently small values of "we".

api 11y ago
> there are some people who, because of their unusual needs, have a bigger more powerful one. Unusual needs like being able to see a lot of text at once, type things longer than a paragraph, multitask, use more than one app in a work flow, and run real software? I doubt it... unless phones develop dockable desktop capability in which case they are now dual-purpose converged devices. Right now to believe that mobile is "the future" of everything requires one to believe that most people have nothing to say beyond one-liners and selfies and that the only purpose of computing is to interact with canned services. That might be true for a subset of the market but I think it's a smaller subset than some do.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > unless phones develop dockable desktop capability in which case they are now dual-purpose converged devices. Phones already have dockable desktop capability (that is, support for desktop-style output via appropriate cables that support HDMI, and support for desktop-style input via Bluetooth keyboard/mouse.)
- clumsysmurf 11y ago
  > I doubt it... unless phones develop dockable desktop capability in which case they are now dual-purpose converged devices. Already here, its only going to get better. http://bgr.com/2016/02/21/hp-elite-x3-review-pt-1-preview/ http://bgr.com/2016/02/21/hp-elite-x3-review-pt-1-preview/
  - igravious 11y ago
    Them's are some drool-worthy specs: http://cdn.bgr.com/2016/02/screen-shot-2016-02-20-at-11-50-35-am.png http://cdn.bgr.com/2016/02/screen-shot-2016-02-20-at-11-50-3...
  - ask5 11y ago
    Someone has already predicted that it will fail ... http://techcrunch.com/2016/02/21/hp-announces-yet-another-mobile-product-that-will-fail/ http://techcrunch.com/2016/02/21/hp-announces-yet-another-mo...
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
duaneb 11y ago
> Everyone is used to having one of these things that they carry around in their pocket, and scarcely anyone really needs any other general-purpose computing device. Unless they want to read something, or type more than a paragraph, or do anything collaborative. Because it still feels a niche role, not a general computing one, the ability to connect to service providers is the dominating characteristic. If anything, I see "phone" moving to be a description of service, and devices are just named device-specific things. People have already started dropping the "smart" part and just assume that a "phone" at LEAST can call. I now distinguish between "phones", "flip phones", and "land lines". If I don't need to talk, why not just get an ipod and a laptop? Each device is much better when giving up the domain of the other.

by gjm11 11y ago

api 11y ago

> there are some people who, because of their unusual needs, have a bigger more powerful one. Unusual needs like being able to see a lot of text at once, type things longer than a paragraph, multitask, use more than one app in a work flow, and run real software? I doubt it... unless phones develop dockable desktop capability in which case they are now dual-purpose converged devices. Right now to believe that mobile is "the future" of everything requires one to believe that most people have nothing to say beyond one-liners and selfies and that the only purpose of computing is to interact with canned services. That might be true for a subset of the market but I think it's a smaller subset than some do.

dragonwriter 11y ago
> unless phones develop dockable desktop capability in which case they are now dual-purpose converged devices. Phones already have dockable desktop capability (that is, support for desktop-style output via appropriate cables that support HDMI, and support for desktop-style input via Bluetooth keyboard/mouse.)
clumsysmurf 11y ago
> I doubt it... unless phones develop dockable desktop capability in which case they are now dual-purpose converged devices. Already here, its only going to get better. http://bgr.com/2016/02/21/hp-elite-x3-review-pt-1-preview/ http://bgr.com/2016/02/21/hp-elite-x3-review-pt-1-preview/
- igravious 11y ago
  Them's are some drool-worthy specs: http://cdn.bgr.com/2016/02/screen-shot-2016-02-20-at-11-50-35-am.png http://cdn.bgr.com/2016/02/screen-shot-2016-02-20-at-11-50-3...
- ask5 11y ago
  Someone has already predicted that it will fail ... http://techcrunch.com/2016/02/21/hp-announces-yet-another-mobile-product-that-will-fail/ http://techcrunch.com/2016/02/21/hp-announces-yet-another-mo...

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

duaneb 11y ago

> Everyone is used to having one of these things that they carry around in their pocket, and scarcely anyone really needs any other general-purpose computing device. Unless they want to read something, or type more than a paragraph, or do anything collaborative. Because it still feels a niche role, not a general computing one, the ability to connect to service providers is the dominating characteristic. If anything, I see "phone" moving to be a description of service, and devices are just named device-specific things. People have already started dropping the "smart" part and just assume that a "phone" at LEAST can call. I now distinguish between "phones", "flip phones", and "land lines". If I don't need to talk, why not just get an ipod and a laptop? Each device is much better when giving up the domain of the other.